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A Peony Table Centerpiece with all of my Grandma’s buttons. This is the first time I’ve actually set out to create a table centerpiece for my dining room table. To be fair this is also the very FIRST time that my dining room has actually been complete! It was so much fun to finally finish it and have a place to be proud of especially because its also the entryway to my home.

Like so many others when cleaning out their grandparents’ homes we found my Grandma’s button stash. She never threw a single button away. We went through all of them, taking them out of little tins and many were still in the plastic sleeve from when they came attached as an extra to a shirt.

We poured them all into a bucket for awhile and simply set it aside to deal with another day.

At first I had planned on purchasing (or creating) a clear lamp out of all those lovely buttons but that never came to fruition mostly because none of us needed another lamp in our lives.

They ended up in this old vase, sitting up on my mom’s shelf for several years until I needed some buttons for a project I was doing and she brought over the whole thing and left it with me.

My Grandma had a line of peonies all along the south side of her home. My mom and I saved them one year and transplanted them to my mom’s house until I moved in here and transplanted them back to Grandma’s house where they belonged.

It is a good thing peonies are so hardy! They survived the moves and have flourished beautifully for me year after year. They are a connection to me and my Grandma and I still think of them as my Grandma’s Peonies.

When our table centerpiece project came along I went looking to purchase some silk flowers to freshen up my dining room. At the time of this project it was still quite winter around my house and some flowers, fake or not, seemed just the ticket to help me get to spring!

I spotted these incredible peonies and they were just perfect. I them home and tried them in several vases and mason jars along with a few other silk flowers I purchased and nothing seemed right.

I added this lovely burlap and lace runner from Amazon and that definitely helped but I still hadn’t yet figured out how to make those silk peonies really stand out.

Finally, I noticed my vase full of my Grandma’s buttons.

It was just prefect! And the buttons are great at holding them where I want them to be. I think my centerpiece is a lovely ode to my Grandma and I love all the color it brought to my dining room!

Be sure to check out the other centerpieces from the rest of the Farmhouse Hens below, following the pictures!

I love all your posts, but this really touched me. First, my mothers favorite flower was a peonie. Second, she started me on my journey to collecting and enjoying buttons. Now I have thousands! Hers were always kept in a tin, mine are in mason jars and some baskets. But I love the look in a vase and I’m going to transfer some later today. Thanks for the memories!

Peonies really are SO special and they smell just incredible, I really hope mine get a better chance this year. Last year they only bloomed for about a week before a hail storm took them out. OMG it looked like a massacre, the ground was covered with them! Thank you so much for coming by and commenting!

My grandma saved random buttons and beads too. As a kid it was like a treasure box to dig through and look at them all (I wonder where that tin ended up after she died. I’ll have to ask my mom). As a teenager, I threaded dozens of buttons together overlapping the holes into a 2 sided choker necklace, loved it! I save those extra buttons that come with some blouses and men’s shirts probably just because she did.

Hi Liz, I can’t throw a button away now and I’m sure its genetic lol. I love having her buttons though, just knowing how she kept them and that she touched every one of them really makes them special to me. I never considered until now how they would be great to hold up silk flowers too!

It always impresses me when the simplest changes have the biggest impact. I bet your Grama is all smiles seeing her buttons again. Old buttons are especially pretty I bet you even have some ivory buttons in her collection.

Amazing Tarah! I love peonies as they remind me of my grandma’s peonies on her farm in MN. We drove up to them and they were so very lovely. Love the buttons too – stunning! Great job my friend and sending hugs.

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I’m Tarah!

There is nothing I love more then making something new and usable again that someone else would have thrown out or torn down. Find out more about me, how I renovated my Grandparents’ 100 year old house and how I am a total DIY fanatic by checking out The story behind Storyhardt Farm You can also find out more about the amazing Grandma behind this blog who moved in to this old farmhouse with my Grandpa nearly 70 years ago!

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